Greystone buildings to be demolished in a 'matter of months'

Estimated cost including remediation is $50 million

Mar. 31, 2014

A woman walks with a baby stroller in front of Greystone Park Psychiatric Hospital. ASSOCIATED PRESS A woman walks with a baby stroller near the unused main building of Greystone Park Psychiatric Hospital in Parsippany, N.J., Thursday, Nov. 3, 2011, after Gov. Chris Christie announced the landmark and 165 acres will be converted into useable open space at a cost of $27 million. (AP Photo/Mel Evans) / AP

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@wwesthoven

Admirers of the historic Greystone Park Psychiatric Hospital, including the beloved Kirkbride building, should snap a picture.

The campus will be knocked down in a “matter of months,” according to members of the state Department of Treasury who visited Morris County Friday to inform officials and a local preservation group that it plans to proceed with demolition.

Adam McGovern, acting secretary of the nonprofit Preserve Greystone, said that Treasurer Andrew P. Sidamon-Eristoff, Deputy Treasurer Robert A. Romano and Chief of Staff Jennifer D’Autrechy met with the group Friday morning.

“The Christie administration is committed to converting the property for open space use for the public to enjoy,” said Treasury spokesperson Joseph Perone. “We discussed the (Preserve Greystone) group’s concerns because we thought they were worth exploring. However, we concluded that the financial risk of preserving or rehabilitating the Kirkbride building is insurmountable.”

“I wouldn’t say ‘discussion,’ because they came to inform us that they plan to proceed with total demolition of the Kirkbride Building,” McGovern said.

“Responsible management of state resources means we must make difficult, informed decisions about how to deal with legacies we have inherited from previous generations,” Perone said. “In the case of the Kirkbride building at Greystone, we must conclude, after extensive study, that the best option is to take down the building and fully remediate the property so it can be returned to public use as open space and park land as soon as possible.”

Preserve Greystone has for several years encouraged preservation of the historic Kirkbride building on the sprawling Greystone campus, which sits mostly in Parsippany, but spills into Randolph, Denville and Morris Plains, according to Sen. Joseph Pennacchio (R-Montville), who represents Parsippany and the 26th District in Trenton.

“This is a major coup for the people of Morris County,” Pennacchio said Friday. “This means Morris County will get an additional 165 acres to go with the 300 acres of Greystone land already turned over, so people can enjoy it, in perpetuity.”

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Pennachio and Sen. Anthony R. Bucco (R-Boonton) sponsored a bill last year calling for the state to sell remaining property it owns at Greystone only to Morris County, with the provision that the land be preserved and not available for construction of homes or commercial space.

The Parsippany council in December unanimously passed a resolution urging the bill be withdrawn or be revised to include provisions “that call for the historic designation and protection of the Kirkbride Building.”

The Morris County freeholders countered by quickly passing a resolution in support of the Pennacchio-Bucco bill, as did the Morris Plains Council.

The Pennacchio-Bucco bill has been referred to the Senate State Government, Wagering, Tourism & Historic Preservation Committee. An identical bill, introduced by assemblymen Jay Webber (R-Parsippany) and Anthony M. Bucco (R-Randolph), has been referred to the Assembly State and Local Government Committee.

Christened in 1876, the Kirkbride Building was considered the largest poured-concrete structure in the U.S. until the construction of the Pentagon. For a while, it was considered a model of modern medicine, with spa-like facilities where many wealthy people paid to rest or recover from various illnesses on the scenic, sprawling campus.

By 2000, the rapidly decaying facilities were housing only 550 patients, and negative publicity generated by on-campus assaults and escaped prisoners prompted then-Gov. Christine Todd Whitman to announce it would be closed by 2003. A new hospital building was built on the campus and opened in 2008, while 300 acres of the property were sold to the Morris County Park Commission for $1 in 2001. That property now includes Central Park of Morris County.

Over the objections of several historical preservation groups, most of the buildings on the campus were determined to be unsalvageable and were razed. A few still stand, however, including the Kirkbride Building, which became the main focus of groups such as Preserve Greystone.

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Perone said the department would issue requests for proposals next week from contractors who wish to perform the remediation and demolition of the Kirkbride Building, along with other pipelines and connecting tunnels known to include hazardous materials.

“Before any demolition work begins, a thorough environmental remediation process will be conducted to remove asbestos, lead paint and other hazardous material from the structure and segregate them for proper disposal,” Perone said. “Current bonding for the project, which is expected to take at least two years, is $50 million.

Perone said the best estimate he could offer for launching the project was “later this year.”

Pennacchio said that to his understanding, the remediated land would be turned over to the county for stewardship, but could not formally be deeded over to the county until the bonds are paid off. He has been willing to listen to any group that could come up with a preservation plan that would not cost the state millions of dollars, but said “no one has.”

The state last April released a 108-page feasibility study that concluded with the opinion that “no market-based reuse alternatives are financially feasible given the underlying study assumptions.” The state also solicited and received six formal expressions of interest received from private groups interested in redeveloping the Kirkbride Building.

The Treasury spokesman did not comment on any of those individual proposals, but Pennacchio said none of them were acceptable to him, particularly one from a West Virginia group that had repurposed a similar Kirkbride Building into “a comprehensive historic-paranormal tour program” as part of a complex that would include a hotel, condominiums, restaurants, shops and civic organizations.

“Turning it into some kind of haunted house? I'm not buying into that,” Pennacchio said. “That would demean every past, current or future patient there.”

David Rice of Cross Properties, another group that submitted a formal expression of interest to redevelop Greystone, traveled from Philadelphia to meet with the Parsippany council in December and explain their plan to create 310 apartments there.

“There’s no doubt Greystone is a challenging building on a lot of levels, but we think through an open process, and by working with the different groups that are involved with it, we can create a lot of value,” Rice said. “We can preserve the historic structure and turn it into something that is economically viable and good for the township and the state.”

But the state never responded to his group’s request, Rice said.

“We won’t give up,” McGovern said. “we feel this administration has done more in three years than previous administrations did in decades, but we feel they did not let their own process play out sufficiently.”